Phase One, Day 25: I Like to Feel the Sand Between My Toes

All right, back to business! I’ve done a lot of thinking in the past about my True Lair. I mean, having a Lair is what makes an Overlord an Overlord, or a villain a villain. There’s a sense of homecoming and purpose in walking down the stairs, through the eleven coded entry gates, down more stairs, past the booby trap maze, through the laser tunnel, over the robot shark moat, down more stairs, and through the cheery, cherry red front door of your Lair.

Here is a true story for you. My very first Lair was my closet, in the room that I shared with my younger sister when I was about five years old. I populated it with a fierce army of imaginary minions, bristling with weapons. They spoke no English at all, and had strict orders to shoot any unauthorized person who came through the door on sight. I forbade my sister to enter my closet under any circumstances, since while she could be annoying at times, I didn’t want her to die at the hands of my overzealous guards. The only way even I could enter my closet safely was to crack the door and announce, “Acoumpliesma,” a word which, in my guards’ native language, roughly translates to, “Don’t shoot – it’s me.”

These days, I’m thinking guards of such a hair-trigger disposition are going to lead to more accidents than they are worth. I’m opting now for a tight security system and creative spatial engineering. I’d like an island Lair – Madagascar, perhaps, or Bali. Underground is traditional, and that way I could preserve the topside as a natural reserve for all the cool plants and animals living there. If some civilians are there, too, it’ll discourage any uprising efforts from bombing the crap out of the place. Nothing tarnishes a revolution more than the senseless slaughter of innocents.

The Lair will have to be designed by about fifty different engineers, of course. We can’t have any one person knowing too much about the blueprints of my home. Maybe 100, even, in shifts: 50 to do the initial design and 50 to revise and add their own twists. No more than three engineers in either shift will speak the same language, either, thus making people who know the layout both difficult to track down, and useless when you put them together. Older engineers are welcome, too. I am absolutely set against killing off anyone who has helped me (that’s low even for an Evil Overlord, and I’m the Glinda kind, right?), but if they’re not around in fifteen years or so, that may be handy in a countering-invaders kind of way.